I recently beat the game because my brother wanted me to be able to talk about it with him. My first play through I just did normal and now I am wanting to have a bit of a challenge. I started a game on survival mode and I am ok with all the changes. However I noticed killing a raider now takes roughly 20 shots with the best pipe gun I have. Which isn't a problem necessarily considering this is an rpg and thus bullet sponging is acceptable. To show power and have meaningful upgrades. My question is for people who have advanced through hardcoe a good ways does this get better?
I am only a lvl 5 and I was on an overpass when I came up on a raider far off and I decided not to shoot bc the fight would of been annoying. I started thinking tho. Maybe the enemies always take a lot if shots early on ( I honestly can't recall).
I don't expect everything to be a 2 shot with the strongest semi auto rifle I have, like it was on normal but hopefully it gets down to 4 or 5 if I am stronger then them. Does anybody know if your shot count goes down as you lvl up?

Depending on your perks and legendary gear it does. Eventually. I'm sure it's the same with normal that [progress curve] is just a bit less steep i.e you need to play longer to reach that point.

Most stuff I oneshot with a silenced sniper head sneak attack (5.3x damage multiplier), and I have a fully kitted out Gauss Rifle as a reserve, but in open combat the still are some sponges, especially since my combat shotgun that I use in close quarters has a very steep falloff with increasing range.

Early game on survival is really the only time things sponge... Enemies don't have more HP, its just the way survival works (ie: similar to Skyrim difficulties).

You basically only do a fraction of the damage you normally do... Like there is a behind the seens % modifier that literally just makes you only do like 25% of normal damage... So your 12 damage pipe gun is instead only doing 3 damage...

Throw in that enemies in survival have extremely high base damage thresholds... So your 3 drops down to a 2 or even a 1... So that raider still only has 20hp, but you are realistically only hitting like 1 or 2 damage per shot on them. That's why the first Deathclaw sponges so well with the minigun, because it has like 300 hp and each shot is only hitting it for like 1 damage...

But as you get into the perks an get stronger weapons it evens out.

Especially if you go stealthy rifle with silencers route. A fully upgraded/perked out silenced Gauss rifle with two shot has 679 base damage... Full ninja is 3.5x... Full sandman is another 1.5x... Deacon's perk is another 1.2x... Head shots are 1.5x... We are talking upwards of 6000 damage for a sneak attack head shot. Even only doing 1/4th of that on Survival, you one shot Behemoths.

As i wrote in another thread, that bullet sponge-ing to increase difficulty is the most bathetic and basic approach. I think it is due to that pretty bad engine, they can't increase AI so they have to go this way. I was really hoping they changed that (was the same in F3/NV).

level 30, survival mode only. atm mostly i can 1 shot or 2 shots even without stealth. the only one that can last 5+ shots are either legendary or strong enemy type such as glowing one, sentry bot, deathclaw...etc those you will need some kiting.

but even if it is normal deathclaw i can tank his attack and one vs one him head on... so it is not that bad. if worse come to worse you can always take some drug XD psycho + jet absolute rampage

That's very good to hear. Thank you all. I probably won't upgrade sneak attack right away even tho I should because I sneak everywhere lol. I am def going to get combat perks tho. Hopefully that is enough. I agree as well that I don't traditionally like bullet sponges either. Like old halo games on legendary for instance. But in an rpg it is completely normal. If this wasn't a shooter it probably wouldn't bother people as much. I do wish they would minimize it as much as they can tho. Maybe have more enemies or better a.i like said above tho I think that is a little unrealistic to expect

Just saw this. That sounds perfect. Makes up my mind completely. Thanks

I actually had to boost up the game difficulty to Survival as a result of the gear I've found/made in the game. If you've ever played Skyrim, this game's difficulty curve is almost exactly the same.